Part 3 - Gettysburg

And now off to the final leg of our trip – Gettysburg! This was my first time to a national park battlefield and it was great. Ted and I arrived Sunday night and met up with J.D. Petruzzi. It was so nice to finally meet one of our authors who I have communicated with only via email and phone for the last few years. And, I couldn’t have had better guides for the trip. The three of us used The Complete Gettysburg Guide (first final copy I had seen!) and started my tour at the location where the first shot was fired. We got many important stops in that evening including the Bloody Railroad Cut, Little Round Top, and Devil’s Den, and even caught the tail end of the sunset.Ted and I in front of a very familiar looking image backdrop . . . =)

Steve Stanley, Jim Glessner, and J.D. Petruzzi at O’Rorkes Sunday evening, with one of the first copies of The Complete Gettysburg Guide signed by the authors.

Monday Ted and J.D. and I spent the morning visiting with stores in the downtown area. It was nice to put faces with the names of people at so many of the stores we enjoy doing business with. It was also very exciting to see many of our titles while browsing through the book selections. I look at the spines of the same books on the bookshelf in my office every day, but something about seeing them beautifully displayed in the stores gave me a new appreciation for what we do. J.D. and I are here with Tammy Myers at the Gettysburg Gift Center. Tammy works with us to set up some great book signings on busy weekends, and we are looking forward to some good signings at their store July 4 weekend in particular.

Here, J.D. is signing a copy of One Continuous Fight in Gallery 30. Gallery 30 is a very well laid out store with lots of beautiful artwork and gifts. The first thing I noticed when we walked in the door were copies of The Unpopular Mr. Lincoln and The New Civil War Handbook right in the middle of their front table!

Monday afternoon we got a tour of Willoughby Run by Eric Lindblade, Sickles enthusiast, American History store employee, and our guide for the afternoon. He kindly put up with my naivety and even Ted got to see a section of the field he hadn’t visited before.

And then off to Pickett’s Charge, or should I say the Pickett-Pettigrew-Trimble Charge? (See guys, I’m learning!) We walked Pickett’s charge with Jim Glessner, who does a great job with the book section at the American History Store, and his son Jacob, who provided some good laughs and even showed off some impressive field knowledge for a five year old!

Monday evening we had our Savas Beatie author dinner including Kyrstie, Steve Stanley, Ted Savas, George Newton, J.D. Petruzzi, Jim Hessler, me, and John Hoptak. It was nice to meet the Savas Beatie Gettysburg authors, and two before their books even come out!

After dinner we headed to the Reliance Mine Saloon for our final beers of the trip. And I got to see firsthand where the infamous photo of DT, Ted’s son, holding an (empty?) glass bottle was taken. Steve Stanley, Jim Hessler, John Hoptak, me, Ted Savas, William Frassanito (whose books were fantastic for this battlefield-newbie), Jim Glessner, Eric Lindblade, and Duane Siskey.

Jim Hessler signing an advanced copy of Sickles at Gettysburg for Jim Glessner. Good practice for the book’s debut at the Butternut and Blue Booth at the Civil War Collector’s Show on June 27!

Thank you to everyone in Gettysburg and especially J.D. (who made the long trip an additional time, for my visit) for making it such an enjoyable and memorable trip. I truly appreciate it.